You Deserve the Best – January 7 2019

You Deserve the Best – January 7 2019

Between living and dreaming
there is a third thing.
Guess it.
Antonio Machado
 
All happiness is self-referral happiness. If I have no relationship with my inner Self, I will not be capable of happiness.
 
Happiness is not something that we achieve. Happiness is something we uncover through our inner work, through our meditation.
 
As we let go of the stresses of our lifetime, we uncover the truth of our Being. The truth of our Being is happiness.
 
In our least-excited state, the place we touch upon in meditation, happiness is what we are. In our least-excited state, we are fulfillment. We are happiness itself.
 
In order to have our happiness, though, we must claim it. We have spent a lifetime practicing unhappiness; we will have to make the choice, again and again, to be the happiness we are. We will have to practice happiness.
 
This, then, becomes our daily practice, outside of meditation: to choose happiness.
 
Guru Deva put it this way:
 
You deserve the best.
Never feel unworthy or
not justified in having the best.
I tell you, this is your heritage;
but, you have to accept it.
You have to expect it;
you have to claim it.
To do so is not demanding too much.
Swami Brahmananda Saraswati, 
Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math
 
Today I will notice when I am seeing the “facts” of my life as causing me unhappiness, and when I am seeing my happiness as dependent upon something that may (or may not) happen in the future; and I will choose, rather, to let go of these ideas and look for happiness in this present moment. Now.
 
Leslie, Smiling, Central Park, New York, NY